I read an interesting article on Facebook the other day. It was about the movie Rogue One and the effect the accent of Mexican actor Diego Luna had on a woman and her father, who is also from Mexico and has a similarly heavy accent. If you want to read the article, do so here.

I don’t have an accent, but as a brown person who, as a child, rarely saw people that looked like myself on TV or anywhere else that matters, I teared up reading this article. It might seem like a little thing but representation does matter. When children don’t see people that look like them held up in the media as someone pretty or valuable or even just normal, they grow up feeling like outsiders. They feel different from everybody else, like they don’t exist.

For me, the saddest part about this is that I grew up as a mixed race brown person in Australia where everyone (well, not everyone but the vast majority) was white. When we moved to Jamaica when I was 10, I thought, ‘Finally, I’ll be like everyone else!’ But the opposite happened. People in Jamaica considered me white. I wasn’t one of them. I was a white person as well as a foreigner. An outsider squared. The only upside was that I found other mixed race children to hang out with and also brown skin was considered more desirable than darker skin so I traded up in that respect. Still, I was too skinny to fit the ideal Jamaican body type so I suppose I broke even in the end.

I don’t know how much different my life would have been if I was born looking like everyone else. When you’ve never looked like everyone else, you can’t possible imagine what it would be like to fit in. In the same way I’d imagine that if you’ve always been one of the majority, you can’t really see the privilege your skin colour, your slim body or your accentless voice gives you. Not that this is anyone’s fault. It’s just the way the world is and it will be a long time before anything changes in a major way. But it made me smile that something like this got so much traction, that people were moved by how happy one person was made because he saw a hero on screen that looked and sounded like him. Imagine how a young boy or girl would feel if they saw someone that looked like them featured in a magazine or in a movie and as a major character rather than just the sidekick to the hero? And it’s not even just a race thing – it’s a gender thing, a plus size (not sure if I like that term but oh well) thing, a sexuality thing. There are so many ‘things’ that can automatically dump you in outsider territory besides just race.

Yet with all I just said, I like enjoy different nowadays. I like being ‘exotic’. I wouldn’t have it any other way. But then again, I can’t, can I? I’ve just learned to love the things that make me look different from everyone else. I’m sure some people with the same experience still wish they could fit in and look like the people around them. And I think that’s sad and I hope one day they can embrace the things that make them different. Because the world is a better place for diversity even if Hollywood and fashion magazines and TV shows are only just starting realise it.

I don’t know what I am, aside from being a human female of course, but, aside from that, it’s hard to categorise myself, race- or nationality-wise. It’s a curious thing to not be sure where you belong.

My dad was half black, half Puerto Rican, born in PR but grew up in New York. Dark brown skin, nappy hair, has dreads or a ‘fro in most of his photos. My mum’s Australian with an English dad – blonde, blue eyes. My sister and me look like the odd ones out in photos with my mum’s side of the family. Two little brown people in a sea of white. I’ve never felt any different but, of course, you never look like everyone else.

When asked my nationality, the short answer is usually Australian-Puerto Rican. People latch onto the PR element as obviously I don’t look all that Australian and I think they’re a bit disappointed when they learn that I don’t speak Spanish. I’ve been to Puerto Rico a few times and I can understand enough Spanish to get by but don’t really know how to identify with being Puerto Rican seeing as I never really grew up with that side of the family. I reunited with them a few years ago in New York/New Jersey and it was wonderful and they made me feel very welcome and included but most of them speak Spanish and have a shared common history so it’s hard to get past that feeling of being the long lost relative. It was weird though, the last time I visited PR (in 2012), I had a strange feeling of being home although I’ve never lived there and had only visited a few times as a child.

On the other hand, I lived in Jamaica from the time I was 10 until a few months before my 18th birthday. I don’t consider myself Jamaican but I spent a significant amount of my childhood there. The food, the music and the language, the whole experience feels more a part of me than my earlier years in Australia. Usually, the full nationality description I give for myself is ‘I’m Australian-Puerto Rican but I grew up in Jamaica’. A lot of my friends just introduce me as their ‘Jamaican fried’ or ‘Nat comes from Jamaica’. This description actually got me into a drunken argument with a guy in New York; he was determined to prove I wasn’t actually Jamaican while I argued that I never said I was, I just grew up there. Side note: drunk people should never argue. You just go round in circles and get nowhere.

Then, of course, there’s Australia. I was born here, lived here til I was 10 and then came back for my 18th birthday (with two short stints in between). That means I’ve been back for 14 years. Yet, if I’m completely honest, I’ve never really felt all that Australian. As a child, it was easy to get swept up in the patriotism of the Olympics or a cricket match but, as an adult, these things don’t really mean anything to me because I have exactly zero interest in sport. The time I most identified with being Australian was when I lived in Jamaica and I think I clung to that idea of being Australian and identifying with everything Aussie because I couldn’t be Jamaican.

Now I’m back in the land down under and I hardly feel Australian at all. Yeah, I worship summer and the beach and I love drinking (especially if it’s in summer while at the beach) and I am 100% behind the sarcastic sense of humour but… what else is there? What do we have that’s uniquely Australian that isn’t tied to some stereotypical idea of hooliganism, bush culture and kangaroos? Personally, I’m on team wombat or koala; they’re much cuter.

Maybe I just like being exotic so I refuse to identify with whatever country I’m currently situated in (although I feel like I definitely want to fit in more in places like Jamaica and Puerto Rico). Or you know what? Maybe I’m just a global citizen who shares her heritage, DNA and whatever the fuck else you get from being mixed race with the world. I’m not from any one place. I’ve been moulded by all the different people I’ve met and places I’ve lived and that’s what makes me who I am. Yep, I reckon that’s it. Mystery solved. I’m from everywhere.